She was finally asleep.
This was normally his most peaceful time, watching her rest. Seeing her body slip into that place he couldn't follow, her dreams as silent as her thoughts. Beautiful mysteries he longed to untangle. Things he loved to later be told.
Not tonight, though.
He was all tangled up in his own guilt.
He'd handed her over to the creature. Against his own instincts, he'd literally driven her to meet him.
Let him crawl into a sleeping bag with her.
And the day before the battle. He cringed, thinking of it. He hadn't even asked her yet, what had happened then.
Or the morning of the battle.
He was too afraid to.
Jacob's thoughts were always loud. Usually obnoxious. He'd dismissed so much of what he'd seen and heard as fantasy.
It was his own special torture now, trying to see if he could discern the difference between them.
Tonight though, he'd avoided Carlisle's thoughts, as he'd treated Bella, trying to afford her the little privacy he could. But it was difficult.
Stitches.
She'd needed stitches.
She was so brave. Always. He didn't want to imagine her being brave with that.
He looked at her sleeping form. So small, bones fine. Bird-like, Emmett liked to think. While he made jokes about it in his head—perpetually trying to annoy Edward—the undercurrent of his thoughts was genuine. She reminded him of the little Tennessee finches his cat tried to catch, but never could.
No. She'd been prey for another creature, hadn't she? the little voice reminded him.
The distinct flavour of Rose's opinions was growing stronger, singling itself out by proximity, from the others in the house.
He said a curse word silently in his head.
I'm not here to fight. Her soundless words were soft, but clear. And you shouldn't be blaming yourself either.
Was it so obvious? He wondered.
"You can't change her," Rose said, breaking his focus. She kept her voice low, beneath the threshold of human hearing. "Not now."
Edward hadn't moved. He was still seated, eyes fixed firmly on Bella. She shifted slightly in the bed, murmuring something he couldn't catch. Then she whimpered.
She'd refused the pain medication for the night, but promised she would try it in the morning, not trusting her uneasy stomach.
Should he wake her? He wondered. If she was hurting—
"Let her sleep," Rose said, beside him. "At least she can escape it then."
The parallels Rose was silently drawing disturbed him. But he couldn't argue that they weren't warranted.
"Don't change her," she whispered. "Please."
It was so earnest, he could feel it slicing into his head.
"I hear you," he said, hands in his hair.
She was twisting her fists together. She did that when she was lost in her only human memories.
"Please Rose," he asked. "Not today. I can't—"
"Sorry," she said, trying to move her mind into something else. "I just—I don't want this for her, Edward. She needs time. She can't—it will consume her," she said.
"I know," he said, this time with less patience.
She looked at him. No, you don't. You haven't got a fucking clue.
He opened his mouth to protest that he'd heard enough of her thoughts.
"No," she repeated. "You don't." Then she looked at Bella, and back at him. "I will do whatever I can to help her. To help you. But you mustn't change her. Not now."
She glared at him. "Promise me."
He sighed.
"No," he said, shaking his head. "It's her choice, Rosalie. Not mine. But speak to her. Convince her."
Rose's mouth twisted in dissatisfaction.
"Alright," she said.
After a moment, he said, "night," to her.
She blew a breath out of her nose, finding this old human habit funny. She'd been dismissed, she knew. "Night," she said back to him.
The night stumbled forward, marked by his fits of guilt, and the indecipherable mumblings of Bella's sleep.
